Save $100 on a Surface Pro 3 for a limited time

If you've been on the fence about purchasing a Surface Pro 3 tablet, perhaps a price cut might help make up your mind, or so Microsoft hopes. From today until February 7 (Saturday), U.S. customers can grab a Surface Pro 3 tablet from the Microsoft Store (online or retail) for $100 off MSRP. In addition, Microsoft is throwing in a protective sleeve valued at $40 at no extra cost -- you can choose from a dozen different styles.

Faster components get baked into Raspberry Pi 2 for the same price

Sequels are rarely as good as or better than the original, though that isn't the case with the Raspberry Pi 2, a faster version of the original with the same tantalizing $35 price tag. This time around, it's been upgraded with a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU (Broadcom BCM2836 SoC) offering roughly six times better performance compared to the 700MHz ARM11 part (Broadcom BCM2835 SoC) found in the Raspberry Pi Model B+.

A graphics card build for overclocking

Renowned overclocker K|NGP|N (or Kingpin, from here on out) has endorsed EVGA's latest GeForce GTX 980 graphics card, which has been "meticulously designed for the extreme overclocker." More than just lip service, this card packs a 14+3 power phase design, a new digitally controlled VRM capable of delivering up to a whopping 600A of current, and three power inputs (two 8-pin and a single 6-pin).

Four hundred to zero in ten years

Perhaps unbeknownst to most of humanity, a paid version of Google Earth has been available for the last ten years to anyone willing to fork out $399 per year. We say “unbeknownst to most of humanity” because that is one of the few possible reasons we can think of—apart from Google’s largesse and a poor value proposition—for the vertiginous drop in Google Earth Pro’s price, which is now an unbelievably low $0 per year.

The company has paid out over $4 million in bug bounties since the program’s inception

Now into its fifth year, Google’s bug bounty program has already seen the search engine giant pay security researchers in excess of $4 million for identifying security vulnerabilities in its various products. And according to a recent post on the company’s Online Security Blog, over $1.5 million was paid out in 2014 alone, with the largest single reward during the year being a whopping $150,000. Still not impressed? Well, neither is Google.

Multiple preview releases coming in 2015

The next versions of Windows Server and System Center management suite are already under development, Microsoft reminded everybody in a blog post Friday, adding it has further preview releases planned for 2015 (the first previews of the two products were released in October). But don’t hold out hope for Microsoft releasing the finished versions anytime soon.

The ‘Great Firewall’ of China has been upgraded

The Great Firewall, as China’s internet censorship system is commonly known, has lately become less tolerant of virtual private networks (VPNs), which a large section of Chinese internet users and businesses rely on to access blocked websites and services. At least three VPN providers known to be popular in China have openly admitted to being hit by “severe disruptions” that point to a major advancement in Chinese internet filtering capabilities.

Staff offered voluntary retirement

Despite successes such as Alien: Isolation, which sold over 1 million copies, and Football Manager 2015, Sega will be making some unfortunate changes. Sega announced that 300 employees will be solicited for voluntary retirement while the company focuses on mobile and PC gaming as part of a restructuring and downsizing process.

UK regulator will not fine Google

Google has been dealing with government regulators from 28 different countries since the company changed its privacy policy back in 2012. In the wake of being fined by Spain and France, Google has agreed to change its privacy policy after Britain’s data protection regulator stated that the privacy policy was too vague.

Autodesk and Corel join lawsuit

It comes as no surprise that businesses will cut corners to reduce costs by any means necessary. Such measures might result in removing free items or services for consumers, but for fashion retail chain Forever 21, cutting corners also includes pirating software. A decision that has resulted in Adobe, along with Autodesk and Corel, filing a lawsuit against Forever 21 that claims the retail chain pirated their software.